MIDI tracks always record the MIDI In Device(s) and/or the Onscreen MIDI Keyboard, regardless of the type of MIDI instrument being used. If the Autodetect Keyboard Channel option is enabled (default) your keyboard's MIDI channel will be detected automatically. If necessary you can set the channel used in the instrument's user interface.

The Pro edition features a built-in MIDI merger that merges all data that's being received on any of the MIDI In Devices (up to four of them can be used, see devices). Make sure your keyboards are using different channels in order to avoid problems.

You can undo MIDI-recording using the track editor's Undo button.

Note: If the MIDI file contains multiple streams ('tracks' in MIDI terms) all streams will be recording. Using multiple streams is not recommended.

The onscreen keyboard can be used to play MIDI instruments, it works just like a MIDI In Device. Not only does it offer a keyboard layout, but drum, chords, matrix and various string layouts as well. It can be made visible using the button in the bottom-right corner of the main window.

Keyboard

Chords

Bass

Drum

Matrix

The onscreen keyboard provides suitable shortcut keys for various international keyboard layouts automatically. The number of keys which can be played simultaneously solely depends on the keyboard hardware, three keys typically isn't a problem. The mouse works too, but it isn't really suited to playing music.

The slider on the left can be assigned to any MIDI controller (including note velocity and pitch) using the Options button. The slider can be turned into a button, this may be more convenient for the sustain controller for example.

The Chords layout allows for playing chords with a single finger. It offers 12 keys for major chords and 12 keys for minor chords. You can use the 6/7/Maj7 buttons on the left to add a note to the chord. The vertical slider sets "the position of the keyboard player's hand on the keyboard".

String instruments can be capoed using the Options button.

The drum layout uses GM instrument mapping.

The Matrix layout can be used with the Matrix Sampler. The pad mapping conforms to the Matrix Sampler's matrix mapping. The 8 pads on the left correspond to the lower 8 cells of the Matrix Sampler, the 8 pads on the right correspond to the upper 8 cells.

Note: the onscreen keyboard's timing may not be as accurate as you'd expect from a real MIDI keyboard.

Using the MIDI keyboard with touchscreens

Note: touchscreen support is available for Windows only.

The onscreen keyboard can be used with a touchscreen. A multi-touch screen lets you play multiple notes simultaneously, and also makes monophonic parts easier to play. The number of fingers which can be used simultaneously solely depends on the touchscreen and its driver. Multi-touch support requires Windows 7 or newer.

The Options button provides access to various options:

Velocity: the higher your finger touches the screen, the higher the velocity.

Aftertouch: polyphonic aftertouch messages are sent if you move a finger upwards.

String Bend: the string instruments support string bending. Only monophonic parts can be played while String Bend is enabled.

Finger Vibrato: guitar/cello style vibrato movements. Finger vibrato only works while just a single note is playing. Both finger vibrato and string bend generate MIDI pitch events.

The drum layout allows for performing hihat pedal movements: put a finger on the HH Open pad to 'hit it with a stick'. Then move the finger to the HH Close pad to close it with the pedal.

Tip: you may find your multi-touch screen responds slowly to a single finger, and any fingers you add are detected much faster. In this case you can keep one finger on the screen while playing the keyboard, and use other fingers to actually play notes.

If you want to play two instruments using only one keyboard you can use the Keyboard Splitter, which is available from the Recording options menu. The Keyboard Splitter splits a MIDI keyboard in a left and right hand part. MIDI messages on one channel are intercepted and separated. All notes below the split note are routed to the left hand channel. All other notes and all controller events are routed to the right hand channel. Each output channel can be transposed up to three octaves up or down.

If the Recording options menu's Autodetect Keyboard Channel option is active (this is the default setting) recording MIDI tracks will respond to messages on all channels. This means that you won't have to worry about the actual MIDI channel being used, it just works.

The Autodetect Keyboard Channel feature will disable itself automatically if there are multiple recording MIDI tracks and they're not all recording the same channel. This means that you won't have to turn it off in order to be able to record two tracks using two keyboards.

You can turn off Autodetect Keyboard Channel if data is coming in on multiple MIDI channels and you want to record just one of them.